Low-Tar Cigarettes Deliver Just as Much Cancer-Causing Material as Regular Brands
Low-Tar Cigarettes Deliver Just as Much Cancer-Causing Material as Regular Brands
Jan. 18, 2000 (Atlanta) -- Smokers may be getting twice as much tar and nicotine as cigarette labels indicate, according to research published in the Jan. 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. That's because the method used to determine the amount of each element a person will take in when they inhale does not account for the way people really smoke.
Tar and nicotine in cigarettes are widely reported on the basis of an FTC machine-smoking protocol. This method is based on habits of people who smoked nicotine-rich, filterless cigarettes in the 1930s, when the machine-smoking methods were first established.
The researchers found that today people smoke dramatically differently from common practice in the 1930s. People draw much larger puffs, and they draw puffs more frequently, lead author Mirjana V. Djordjevic, PhD, tells WebMD. She is a researcher with the Division of Cancer Etiology and Prevention at the American Health Foundation, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) research center where the link between smoking and lung cancer was first identified.
The researchers examined the puffing characteristics of smokers by looking at their cigarette butts and then programming information into a piston-type machine to 'machine smoke' each person's brand of cigarettes. Compared with the FTC labels, the researchers found that smokers of low- or medium-yield brands took in "statistically significant" larger puffs at "statistically shorter" intervals, and they drew larger total amounts of smoke than specified by the FTC.
"Our volunteers showed that people, on average, take three puffs per minute, take much larger puffs more frequently, which results in much higher yield of cigarette smoke, and subsequently higher nicotine and higher tar, which contains those carcinogens which are believed to cause lung cancer," says Djordjevic. "On average, it seems that everybody is getting twice as much tar and nicotine than what we would conclude from the FTC information."
People also have a tendency to block ventilation holes either with their lips or their fingers, which affects the amount of carcinogens they inhale, says Djordjevic. "We even have heard cases of people putting Scotch tape around the holes. They make it into something that is more desirable to them because they have a physiological need for nicotine."
Low-Tar Cigarettes Deliver Just as Much Cancer-Causing Material as Regular Brands
Jan. 18, 2000 (Atlanta) -- Smokers may be getting twice as much tar and nicotine as cigarette labels indicate, according to research published in the Jan. 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. That's because the method used to determine the amount of each element a person will take in when they inhale does not account for the way people really smoke.
Tar and nicotine in cigarettes are widely reported on the basis of an FTC machine-smoking protocol. This method is based on habits of people who smoked nicotine-rich, filterless cigarettes in the 1930s, when the machine-smoking methods were first established.
The researchers found that today people smoke dramatically differently from common practice in the 1930s. People draw much larger puffs, and they draw puffs more frequently, lead author Mirjana V. Djordjevic, PhD, tells WebMD. She is a researcher with the Division of Cancer Etiology and Prevention at the American Health Foundation, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) research center where the link between smoking and lung cancer was first identified.
The researchers examined the puffing characteristics of smokers by looking at their cigarette butts and then programming information into a piston-type machine to 'machine smoke' each person's brand of cigarettes. Compared with the FTC labels, the researchers found that smokers of low- or medium-yield brands took in "statistically significant" larger puffs at "statistically shorter" intervals, and they drew larger total amounts of smoke than specified by the FTC.
"Our volunteers showed that people, on average, take three puffs per minute, take much larger puffs more frequently, which results in much higher yield of cigarette smoke, and subsequently higher nicotine and higher tar, which contains those carcinogens which are believed to cause lung cancer," says Djordjevic. "On average, it seems that everybody is getting twice as much tar and nicotine than what we would conclude from the FTC information."
People also have a tendency to block ventilation holes either with their lips or their fingers, which affects the amount of carcinogens they inhale, says Djordjevic. "We even have heard cases of people putting Scotch tape around the holes. They make it into something that is more desirable to them because they have a physiological need for nicotine."